Crude, homophobic tweets send Liberal candidate Aaron Lane packing

OFFENSIVE social media comments have forced Liberal candidate Aaron Lane to bow out of the race for one of the region's upper house seats.

Aaron Lane

OFFENSIVE social media comments have forced Liberal candidate Aaron Lane to bow out of the race for one of the region's upper house seats.

Liberal Party state director Damian Mantach confirmed Mr Lane, a former Portland resident, would not stand at the November state election for the Coalition.

Mr Lane was exposed using Twitter to attack homosexuals, referring to Labor figure Simon Crean as a "big C" and former speaker Peter Slipper as "a giant C". He also repeatedly referred to masturbation.

In a series of messages posted between early 2011 and late 2012, Mr Lane used terms such as "faggots" and wrote "the problem is (IMO in my opinion) many homos make their sexuality a defining part of their being". Another tweet says that "shirts are for faggots".

Mr Lane was endorsed by the Liberal Party as its candidate in May and was almost guaranteed to be an upper house MP for south west Victoria due to the Legislative Council's voting system.

"There is no place in my team or in the Coalition team for this sort of behaviour and these sorts of comments."

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews also said Mr Lane was unfit to stand for State Parliament. A few hours after Dr Napthine's interview, Liberal Party state headquarters confirmed Mr Lane would not stand as its upper house candidate for Western Victoria.